Belleville labor union officer sentenced for taking a bribe

A Belleville man was sentenced today to six months in prison or a halfway house for illegally demanding and receiving a bribe, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

James J. Kearney Sr., 76, of Belleville previously pleaded guilty in Newark federal court before U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares to information charging him with unlawfully receiving a prohibited labor payment.

Kearney was the former business manager and an employee of Local 45 of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Ironworkers, out of Jersey City. He was arrested on Nov. 22 of last year, and where he now serves his six months of incarceration will be determined by the Bureau of Prisons.

According to documents, a cooperating witness who was also a New Jersey construction company representative met with Kearney on several occasions, and asked about using non-union ironworkers for an upcoming Hudson County project. The witness inquired on Aug. 1, 2011 in a consensually recorded meeting about buying union books, which are proof of a worker's admission into and membership in a union, for his own employees. The witness later paid Kearney $3,000 as a "good will" investment regarding the planned construction project.

Kearney and the witness met again exactly three weeks later in Jersey City, and Kearney said that some union books could be obtained at a charge of $5,000 per book, plus $728 per book for required initiation and dues fees in the form of a check. The books would not come from Local 45, and Kearney also asked for information on the individuals who would be receiving the books, such as their name, address, birth date and Social Security number.

Kearney also told the witness he could "never say it [the books] came from me . . . please."

The two individuals met again on Aug. 31, 2011 at the Local 45 union hall in another consensually recorded meeting, and the witness provided Kearney with the indentifying information of two purported construction employees, who in actuality were undercover federal law enforcement agents. Besides a pair of blank U.S. Postal money orders for $728 each, the witness also paid Kearney $10,000 in cash, or $5,000 for each of the two union books, which Kearney placed in a desk drawer.

The money orders were later cashed by the same local in southern New Jersey. An Ironworkers local from that area issued a receipt for $728 through the mail on Sept. 2, 2011 for the initiation and union dues fees for one of the employees/undercover officers. Kearney was arrested two-and-half months later on a criminal complaint related to his receipt of the payoff.

Kearney was also sentenced to six months of home confinement and two years of supervised release. He was also fined $5,000, and ordered to pay $13,000 in restitution.